Thinking about a beer tonight as it's Friday and I'm stressed, ruminating about everything I said or did today. Why can't I be more perfect? This must be a crux of social anxiety and part of why I avoid people. Even in friendly social situations, I ruminate over and over what I said and how that could've been wrong or it should've been this or maybe I'll get in trouble now or that person wont like me anymore or I hurt their feelings etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

I seriously wish I could just never say anything to anyone ever again. It'd take awhile, cause everyone, even the chronically shy have things they want to say. But the comfort of not having this constant anxiety would soon outweigh my urge to talk.

But I have to talk at work, a lot, and where there's people there's conflict. I try my heart out to please everyone, and really, I come pretty close. I'm not perfect, super far from it actually, and I often say the wrong thing.

There is no off switch to this rumination I experience.

But I don't really want to drink now, either, because aside from the fact that moderation has proven time and again to be generally unattainable for me, I've been forced to change and I feel like I'm a lot more mature then before I quit drinking.

I also think I acquired some healthy cynacism and lost some idealism.

I don't want to go back to being younger, trusting, overestimating the value I have to others. I don't want to lose the grip on reality I've gained. Sounds kinda funny because most days I think I'm tilted off my axis. But I'd rather be seeing things from a more realist stance and err on the side of the paranoid and negative then to see things from an idealistic stance and err on the side of trusting and over optimistic.

And I'm free of imaginary relationships. I don't ruminate about a man or even men of the past any more. Wow did that ever take forever. Was that a side effect of drinking or the effect of relationships ending in a most accutely painful way?

I'll never know I guess. I have read that alcohol can contribute to obsessive thinking.

oh well, Friday night can stick it. Anything I said today was said, if I suffer repercussions from it that's too bad, nothing I can do about it now.